An understanding of life can be found through first understanding death. How one perceives and places meaning upon death, is the same as how one perceives and places meaning upon life. Therefore, seeking the answer to the question of what life is can be done through first asking what death is

For those who see death as the end, they will constantly seek to fill their lives with all of the experiences they desire and will try to fit everything into one lifetime. For them, life and death and everything in between happens here during their lives.

In summary, for them life begins and then later it ends, and when their lives end they end with it.

In our understanding of life there is no ending with death. It is a never-ending life…for death is not the ultimate end, but rather it is a new beginning and a new birth.

In fact, the great scholar Hazret-i Mevlana teaches us that death is more than a new birth, it is a reunion. In his understanding death is “shab-é `arûs”, a “Wedding Night”. Death is not an end but rather the beginning of a new life named al-??ira (afterlife), and death is merely the journey from this life to the afterlife.

Mevlana, tells us about this journey throughout the Mathnawi. In fact, with each and every line that you read in the Mathnawi there is, in a sense, a new beginning or a new birth. With every verse you read, you awaken and are enlivened more and more. This is because every word and every verse in the Mathnawi is filled with the ecstatic joy and the passionate longing for union with the Only Beloved. The Mathnawi was written with this passion.

For many centuries the Mathnawi has been read on this land. The Mathnawi was one of the most important works which influenced our culture’s peace and harmony. It is a great collection of teachings that teaches us love and faith and how to be a real human.

We’ve built a culture around the teachings of this important work.

Now it is time to come to our selves again and to read the Mathnawi again in order to give meaning to our lives.

In these times of great violence, exploitation, discrimination and subversive and separatist viewpoints which the whole world is surrounded with, we are in great need of the Mathnawi.

To put an end to discrimination, to live in harmony together, and to understand our humanity we are in the need of the Mathnawi.

We need to recommence reading the Mathnawi in order to attain the joys of the night of the reunion with the Only Beloved, the “Wedding Night”.

Read the Mathnawi again and again…read, understand, and give meaning to life!